4 scenarios in which hiring an off-site development team makes sense

Imagine this: in the middle of a sprint, your customer wants to add a new feature to the product. As soon as possible, as usual.

"But all developers are busy building the critical components of the software, and we have not planned to hire more people so soon," you say to the customer. "I'm sure you'll find a solution," she replies. And you do.

You decide to delegate this short-term work to an off-site software development team. Once their work is done, the feature is successfully delivered and the customer is satisfied with the result. You are free to say goodbye to the extended team and continue your life. At least for the moment. It is likely that if you enjoyed the cooperation, you may want to start again.

Advantages

• Easy scale reduction process. Or should we say, shot without pain? Thanks to the short-term commitment between your company and the dedicated team, the dismissal process is fluid and safe for both sides. And because the dedicated development team is scalable, you can have the exact number of people needed to work on the project at different stages.
• The internal team focuses on the main tasks. By even entrusting a small project to another team, you give your internal developers time to focus on critical tasks.

The inconvenients

• Cultural differences Communication between the internal and external development teams can be somewhat ruined if their cultural differences are striking. This is why it is essential to choose off-site (often foreign) programmers whose cultural background is similar to that of the main team. Believe me, things can get tough when holidays like Christmas do not line up. Of course, you can work around the problem, but be careful of this in advance.
  

What happens if your business is in its infancy and you have to create an MVP by avoiding missteps at all costs? What remains of a month to present to potential investors? What are you doing then?

Obviously, it makes sense to extend the existing team with new developers. But hiring internally is irrelevant because the recruitment process is costly in time and money. And you had your share of bad experiences when you worked with freelancers who were unreliable and who, frankly, felt like a security threat.

If your start is limited in time and resources, working with a dedicated team is your best option. This will save you money because off-site developers typically charge less and save you time on recruitment. In the end, you will need highly skilled professionals to build your MVP just in time.

Advantages

• Time saving. A dedicated team is very fast in terms of integration, which is essential if you have a strict deadline for the project. And you know that the faster your product enters the market, the better.
• Quality retained. Working with a dedicated team means hiring skilled workers and professionals in the field. That's why the quality of your final product will be spectacular. Plus, you can quickly get help from niche experts if you need it.

The inconvenients

One day, you realize that a human chatbot is what your web solution needs. Too bad, your in-house software developers do not know the first thing about chatbots. So you are thinking of ways to fill this lack of skills.

Hiring locally is not an option, as you will probably not have another job to do after the job is done. Not to mention that machine learning specialists are expensive and hard to find. In this case, it makes sense to increase your IT staff.

Just browse a tech talent market looking for the right candidate, contact the person you've selected, and enjoy all the additional customers your new chatbot can handle.

Advantages

• Faster and better solution. If none of your current employees wish to change careers and invest months in learning new technology, entrust the task to an external domain expert. Thanks to all the experience that they have, your task can turn out to be a piece of cake that they can deliver in a week.
• High quality retainer. When you hire a team of dedicated professionals with specific skills for the project, you will not have to worry about quality. Chances are, they have already worked on a similar problem for another client and know how to implement the solution.

The inconvenients

• Support. The functionality developed by the domain specialist can (and certainly will require) badistance in the future. This leaves you with three options.

1) You can train some of your in-house developers to use niche technology and in about a year they will be able to support this feature.

2) Keep contacting the same developer who created the feature each time it needs to be changed.

3) Hire another niche specialist every time you need to update the feature.

Off-site software development is not going anywhere. Companies will continue to use dedicated development teams whenever they need to save money, quickly find a developer or work with a niche technology. When you want a diversity of talent and technology, as well as scalability and flexibility, it is better to recruit offsite development teams than to modify an internal software development team.

Your business may need to hire many technology professionals at once, expand or reduce operations quickly, adjust to time or budget constraints (usually both), or implement a feature requiring niche skills. In all these cases of use, the use of external developers is your solution.

Once you've decided that off-site development is exactly what your business needs, you need to know where to look for highly skilled professionals. Basically, there are three ways to do it. You can search for social hiring networks like LinkedIn., choose an outsourcing partner yourself or use a technology talent market.